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Winter sweet Hangzhou -- how sweet it is
By Wang Yong |
January 10, 2009, Saturday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
IN the dead of winter, even in snow, winter sweet puts forth a profusion of bright yellow blossoms and a heady, heavenly perfume in Hangzhou, writes Wang Yong
Tucked away in a maze of crowded lanes in central Hangzhou, capital city of Zhejiang Province, lies a cozy little courtyard of archaic style, now filled with the fragrance of yellow winter sweet, a Chinese shrub that usually blossoms from January to March.
It's the perfume of one shrub alone that graces the entire courtyard in the dead of winter. It can be smelled from 50 yards away.
My wife and I came upon this courtyard of white walls and dark roofs of curved tiles as we hurried toward the Hangzhou Railway Station on the wintry afternoon of January 4 on our way back to Shanghai from a three-day holiday.
We had just walked half an hour from the east bank of the famed West Lake, where blossoming winter sweet entertained our eye and olfactory sense on a misty morning.
The odd thing was that the lonely shrub in the courtyard was in full, extravagant bloom while lakeside shrubs had just started to blossom. Don't count on my wife or me for a scientific answer.
We have a poetic answer, though, as the unusual history of the courtyard inspired us to poetry. A Chinese national hero, who was falsely accused of treason and executed, was born and raised here about 600 years ago.
To our simple minds, the winter sweet flowers, long praised in ancient Chinese literature as the symbol of dignity and nobility, flourished that day for one man, and one man alone: Yu Qian (1398-1457).
In 1449, Mongols captured the emperor of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and many Ming Dynasty officials proposed to abandon Beijing in their terror of an onslaught of Mongols.
Yu snorted at the idea of retreat and threw down the gauntlet. At his urging, the brother of the captured emperor ascended the throne, dashing plans of the Mongols to use the old emperor as a bargaining chip.
Yu later amassed troops and defeated the invaders who, after holding the Ming emperor for some time, decided to send him back to Beijing. Seven years after his return, the old emperor staged a coup and killed Yu on charges of sedition and treason.
In 1489, another Ming emperor restored Yu's reputation. He has since become a national hero known for his loyalty to his motherland.
If you go to Hangzhou in winter, winter sweet flowers are a must-see, and so is Yu's old residence in Citang Lane to the east of West Lake.
Read this poem by Yu before you go:
Ode to Lime (mineral)
Hammered and tempered a thousand times,
You come from deep mountains with grace.
Unafraid of being smashed to pieces,
You care only about pride and purity.
Yu's refusal to bend in adversity, even before false charges that would cost him his life, represents one characteristic that Chinese literati attribute to winter sweet: blooming in extremely bad weather.
Winter sweet grows mainly to the south of the Yellow River. Its petals can be as bright as yellow wax, that's why it's called lamei in Chinese, meaning waxy plums (though strictly speaking, winter sweet does not belong to the plum family).
There are many types of winter sweet, and the shrubs in Yu's old residence and near West Lake are one of the most beautiful and fragrant, looking like small inverted golden bells.
If it snows in Hangzhou in the next few weeks, run to see winter sweet there. These flowers are most graceful in snow.
Book a room in Orange Hotel on Nanshan Road to the east of West Lake, and the winter sweet garden is within five minutes' walk from the hotel. It is in an area known as Liu Lang Wen Ying (Listening to Orioles in Waves of Willows).
Room prices are fair. A king-size bedroom costs about 400 yuan (US$58) on average, depending on directions. Heavy traffic is noisy, but you can sleep like a log if you close the double-glass windows.
The botanic garden in Hangzhou is another heaven of winter sweet, but there's a small entrance fee of around 10 yuan. You can take Bus Y2.
My wife and I have been to Hangzhou 13 times in one year and we venture to boast that we know Hangzhou better than many locals.
If you don't want to go hiking, winter is an ideal time for relaxation, especially for your eyes long-strained before your computers.
In winter, especially before the Chinese Lunar New Year, you have the whole West Lake to yourself, as most tourists gallop home for family reunion.
On the drizzling morning of January 4, the only other person beside my wife and I enjoying the winter sweet was a middle-aged local woman.
She danced in mincing steps to melodic traditional tunes, raising her head to the sky and sniffing the yellow flowers as though she were carried away.
"I don't want to go," she told us, gazing at the blooming flowers. "How I wish I could stay here forever."
Tucked away in a maze of crowded lanes in central Hangzhou, capital city of Zhejiang Province, lies a cozy little courtyard of archaic style, now filled with the fragrance of yellow winter sweet, a Chinese shrub that usually blossoms from January to March.
It's the perfume of one shrub alone that graces the entire courtyard in the dead of winter. It can be smelled from 50 yards away.
My wife and I came upon this courtyard of white walls and dark roofs of curved tiles as we hurried toward the Hangzhou Railway Station on the wintry afternoon of January 4 on our way back to Shanghai from a three-day holiday.
We had just walked half an hour from the east bank of the famed West Lake, where blossoming winter sweet entertained our eye and olfactory sense on a misty morning.
The odd thing was that the lonely shrub in the courtyard was in full, extravagant bloom while lakeside shrubs had just started to blossom. Don't count on my wife or me for a scientific answer.
We have a poetic answer, though, as the unusual history of the courtyard inspired us to poetry. A Chinese national hero, who was falsely accused of treason and executed, was born and raised here about 600 years ago.
To our simple minds, the winter sweet flowers, long praised in ancient Chinese literature as the symbol of dignity and nobility, flourished that day for one man, and one man alone: Yu Qian (1398-1457).
In 1449, Mongols captured the emperor of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and many Ming Dynasty officials proposed to abandon Beijing in their terror of an onslaught of Mongols.
Yu snorted at the idea of retreat and threw down the gauntlet. At his urging, the brother of the captured emperor ascended the throne, dashing plans of the Mongols to use the old emperor as a bargaining chip.
Yu later amassed troops and defeated the invaders who, after holding the Ming emperor for some time, decided to send him back to Beijing. Seven years after his return, the old emperor staged a coup and killed Yu on charges of sedition and treason.
In 1489, another Ming emperor restored Yu's reputation. He has since become a national hero known for his loyalty to his motherland.
If you go to Hangzhou in winter, winter sweet flowers are a must-see, and so is Yu's old residence in Citang Lane to the east of West Lake.
Read this poem by Yu before you go:
Ode to Lime (mineral)
Hammered and tempered a thousand times,
You come from deep mountains with grace.
Unafraid of being smashed to pieces,
You care only about pride and purity.
Yu's refusal to bend in adversity, even before false charges that would cost him his life, represents one characteristic that Chinese literati attribute to winter sweet: blooming in extremely bad weather.
Winter sweet grows mainly to the south of the Yellow River. Its petals can be as bright as yellow wax, that's why it's called lamei in Chinese, meaning waxy plums (though strictly speaking, winter sweet does not belong to the plum family).
There are many types of winter sweet, and the shrubs in Yu's old residence and near West Lake are one of the most beautiful and fragrant, looking like small inverted golden bells.
If it snows in Hangzhou in the next few weeks, run to see winter sweet there. These flowers are most graceful in snow.
Book a room in Orange Hotel on Nanshan Road to the east of West Lake, and the winter sweet garden is within five minutes' walk from the hotel. It is in an area known as Liu Lang Wen Ying (Listening to Orioles in Waves of Willows).
Room prices are fair. A king-size bedroom costs about 400 yuan (US$58) on average, depending on directions. Heavy traffic is noisy, but you can sleep like a log if you close the double-glass windows.
The botanic garden in Hangzhou is another heaven of winter sweet, but there's a small entrance fee of around 10 yuan. You can take Bus Y2.
My wife and I have been to Hangzhou 13 times in one year and we venture to boast that we know Hangzhou better than many locals.
If you don't want to go hiking, winter is an ideal time for relaxation, especially for your eyes long-strained before your computers.
In winter, especially before the Chinese Lunar New Year, you have the whole West Lake to yourself, as most tourists gallop home for family reunion.
On the drizzling morning of January 4, the only other person beside my wife and I enjoying the winter sweet was a middle-aged local woman.
She danced in mincing steps to melodic traditional tunes, raising her head to the sky and sniffing the yellow flowers as though she were carried away.
"I don't want to go," she told us, gazing at the blooming flowers. "How I wish I could stay here forever."
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